The Senate Judiciary Committee began hearings on January 10 to consider President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Senator Jeff Sessions (shown, R-Ala.) for the position of U.S. attorney general. During the opening statement at the hearing, Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) observed that today’s hearing “hardly introduces Senator Sessions to the Committee. No, we’re here today to review the character and qualifications of a colleague who has served alongside us in the Senate for twenty years. That includes time as the Ranking Member of this Committee.” (Empasis in original.)

Sessions began by reading from a prepared statement, during which he told his fellow committee members, “You know who I am. You know what I believe in. You know that I am a man of my word and can be trusted to do what I say I will do. You know that I revere our Constitution and am committed to the rule of law. And you know that I believe in fairness, impartiality, and equal justice under the law.”

The last time Sessions appeared before a confirmation hearing, in 1986, he had been nominated for a federal judgeship by President Ronald Reagan. But his nomination was rejected following accusations that he had made “racist” comments and had not sufficiently protected voting accessibility for black voters. This time around, in anticipation of a resurrection of such accusations during the scheduled testimony on January 11 of three Democratic members of the Congressional Black Caucus — Georgia Representative John Lewis, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, and Louisiana Representative Cedric Richmond — Sessions peremptorily addressed those old charges.

“I abhor the Klan and its hateful ideology,” Sessions said. “I never declared the NAACP was un-American.”

The statement was an apparent reference to a demonstration by protesters before the hearing began, which continued through his opening statements. Right as Sessions was walking in, two demonstrators dressed as members of the Ku Klux Klan were escorted out of the committee room.

Sessions continued by saying he was well aware of civil rights and their importance.

“I deeply understand the history of civil rights and the horrendous impact that relentless and systemic discrimination and the denial of voting rights has had on our African-American brothers and sisters,” he said. “I have witnessed it. We must continue to move forward and never back. I understand the demands for justice and fairness made by our LGBT community. I will ensure that the statutes protecting their civil rights and their safety are fully enforced. I understand the lifelong scars born by women who are victims of assault and abuse.”

A Fox News opinion piece posted on January 10 started by saying, “President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general is facing nothing short of a racially-motivated, political lynch mob on Capitol Hill.” It continued by offering the opinion that the demonstration by the protesters dressed as Klansmen “set the stage for what will no doubt be an ugly attempt by Democrats to assassinate the character of the gentleman from Alabama.”

The Fox piece noted that while the NAACP and congressional Black Caucus “smeared Sessions’ character without offering a shred of documented evidence that he’s a racist,” “there is plenty of evidence to support the claims that he’s a defender of civil rights.”

The article provided as examples the fact that during his tenure as a U.S. attorney, Sessions desegregated schools.

Also, he prosecuted the head of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan for murder. The piece cited a New York Post report that Sessions’ prosecution led to a multi-million dollar judgment that broke the back of the Klan.

However, if the Left intends to smear Sessions, he appears to be well on top of things and — as noted above — came out of the box shooting down the charges even before Booker and his cronies start their work on January 11.

Sessions has earned a reputation as one of the Senate’s most vocal opponents of our nation’s loose immigration policies and has described President Obama as a “dictator” because of his policies of resettling illegal immigrants in states that do not want them. Sessions has called attention to the potential for terrorists from place such as Syria infiltrating the United States hidden among refugees, and he has also opposed legal immigrations plans such as the H-1B guest-worker program on the grounds that they give American jobs to foreign workers.

In his many statements regarding immigration, Sessions has highlighted the economic downfalls of legal immigration programs and their impact on the job market for American workers, as well as pointed out the potential danger of terrorists such as members of ISIS infiltrating our nation among refugees from Syria.

In April 2015, Sessions and Senate Minority Whip Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) led a bipartisan coalition of senators who sent a letter to then-Attorney General Eric Holder, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, and Labor Secretary Thomas Perez asking them to investigate Southern California Edison’s use of the H-1B guest-worker program to replace American workers.

A post on Sessions’ Senate webpage said that he was a leading opponent of President Obama’s “unconstitutional executive amnesties, which gives jobs and benefits to illegal workers at the expense of struggling families.”

In a speech on the Senate floor in 2015, Sessions strongly condemned President Obama’s request for funding for refugee resettlement, basing his opposition on both economic and security threats found in the president’s plan. He addressed the matter of security as follows:

The President persists in this plan even though his own officials, testifying before my Immigration Subcommittee, conceded there is no database in Syria with which to vet refugees…. The FBI director tells us there are now active ISIS investigations in all 50 U.S. states.

Our subcommittee has identified dozens of examples of foreign-born immigrants committing and attempting acts of terror on U.S. soil. Preventing and responding to these acts is an effort encompassing thousands of federal agents and attorneys and billions of dollars: in effect, we are voluntarily admitting individuals at risk for terrorism and then, on the back end, trying to stop them from carrying out their violent designs.

During his remarks to the Judiciary Committee on January 10, Sessions stated: “If I am confirmed, protecting the American people from the scourge of radical Islamic terrorism will continue to be a top priority of the Department of Justice. We will work diligently to respond to threats, using all lawful means to keep the American people safe from our nation’s enemies.”

Most knowledgeable Washington political analysts believe Sessions should receive confirmation easily, and the noise raised during the hearings will amount to nothing more than an annoying irritation.

Photo: AP Images

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Senator Jeff Sessions is a Good, Decent, and Wise Man…so of Course the democrats HATE him…

Can anyone on the left form a coherent sentence? Tell the truth? Recognize the truth? Can any dim-o-crat speak without using obscenities and without screaming out their hate and stupidity for all to see? This crap is exactly why they lost, and are through as a political force…Everyone is over the libbies, even the young people they tried so hard to indoctrinate into their lunacy are beginning to see through their lies…

Peter Kirsanow, a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (AP Photo)

(CNSNews.com) – Peter Kirsanow, a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, testified Wednesday that a review of the bills that Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), nominee for attorney general, has sponsored and co-sponsored during his time in the Senate “as well as his public activities and actions” showed that his “approach to civil rights is consistent, is legally sound, intellectually honest,” and that he “has an appreciation and understanding of the historical bases for civil rights laws.”

“Our examination found that Senator Sessions’ approach to civil rights matters – both in terms of his legislative record and his other actions – is consistent with mainstream textural interpretation of relevant statutory and constitutional authority as well as governing precedent,” Kirsanow told the Senate Judiciary Committee at Sessions’ confirmation hearing.

“Our examination also reveals that Senator Sessions’ approach to civil rights is consistent, is legally sound, intellectually honest, and has an appreciation and understanding of the historical bases for civil rights laws, and our examination found that several aspects of Senator Sessions’ record unfortunately have been mischaracterized and distorted to portray him as somehow being indifferent if not hostile to civil rights. The facts emphatically show otherwise,” Kirsanow said.

Kirsanow named a number of bills that Sessions has sponsored or co-sponsored while in the Senate which honor “significant civil rights leaders, events, icons such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Coretta Scott King, Reverend Shuttlesworth’s fight against segregation, three separate bills honoring Rosa Parks, a Senate apology to the descendants of victims of lynching, a bill to honor participants of the Selma Voting Rights March, a bill to honor the victims of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, and on and on and on.”

“But Senator Sessions’ commitment to civil rights transcends simple resolutions in support of civil rights. He has authored, co-sponsored, or sponsored a number of bills to protect and enhance voting rights such as the Federal Election Reform Act of 2001, the Voter Fraud Protection Act of 2009, a number of bills to protect and enhance the voting rights of service members – particularly those serving overseas,” Kirsanow said.

“He’s a strong proponent of religious liberty, having sponsored or co-sponsored several bills to prevent discrimination against the religiously observant and to prevent the government from substantially burdening the free exercise of a person’s religious beliefs, but in our estimation, his most profound and important impact is on preserving and protecting the rights of American workers, particularly black workers,” Kirsanow added.

Kirsanow noted that “the labor participation rate for black males “is 61.8 percent and falling” and that “the unemployment rate for black males is nearly double that of white males.”

“Evidence produced before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights shows that 40 percent of the 18-point in black employment levels is attributable to government failure or refusal to enforce existing immigration laws, and this has a cascade effect by increasing the competition within the unskilled and low skilled marketplace, driving out black workers, slashing wages, particularly among black males,” he added.

“And this has resulted in hundreds of thousands, if not slightly over a million blacks, having lost their jobs directly due to this phenomenon, and it has broader sociological implications as well related to incarceration and family formation rates,” Kirsanow said.

“No one has been more committed or engaged than Senator Jeff Sessions in protecting and enhancing the prospects of black workers in America. But for his indefatigable efforts in this guard, the plight of black workers now, in the immediate future, and in the foreseeable future would be demonstrably worse,” he said.

Sessions’ “leadership on this matter, and his leadership on the Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest has been key to restoring an even deeper downward trajectory for black workers in this country,” Kirsanow said.

Kirsanow concluded, by saying that Sessions’ “record on civil rights legislation, his actions as a U.S. attorney and state attorney demonstrate an unwavering commitment to equal protection under the law, and a genuine fidelity to the rule of law that should make him an outstanding attorney general.”

Richard Allen, President Ronald Reagan’s first national security adviser, once wrote an essay for Human Events describing a visit he made to Reagan’s California home in 1977.

Allen went there, he wrote, to ask Reagan to support his campaign for governor of New Jersey. He and the future president ended up talking about foreign policy.

“I’d like to tell you of my theory of the Cold War,” Reagan told Allen. “Some people think that I am simplistic, but there is a fundamental difference between being simplistic and having simple answers to complex questions.”

“So,” Reagan said, “my theory of the Cold War is that we win and they lose.”

Twelve years later, the Berlin Wall came down.

Reagan led the West to victory in the Cold War because he understood — as he explained in a 1983 speech to the National Association of Evangelicals — that at its core the Cold War was a moral struggle against an “evil empire.”

In that same speech, Reagan said that “freedom prospers only where the blessings of God are avidly sought and humbly accepted.

“The American experiment in democracy rests on this insight,” he said. “Its discovery was the great triumph of our Founding Fathers, voiced by William Penn when he said, ‘If we will not be governed by God, we must be governed by tyrants.'”

Reagan said he embraced “a political philosophy that sees the greatness of America in you, her people, and in your families, churches, neighborhoods, communities — the institutions that foster and nourish values like concern for others and respect for the rule of law under God.

“Now, I don’t have to tell you,” Reagan said, “that this puts us in opposition to, or at least out of step with, a prevailing attitude of many who have turned to a modern-day secularism, discarding the tried and time-tested values upon which our very civilization is based.”

Reagan saw the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision — declaring abortion a right — as a giant step toward further attacks on the sanctity of life.

“More than a decade ago, a Supreme Court decision literally wiped off the books of 50 states statutes protecting the rights of unborn children,” Reagan said. “Abortion on demand now takes the lives of up to one and a half million unborn children a year. Human life legislation ending this tragedy will some day pass the Congress, and you and I must never rest until it does.

“You may remember,” he continued, “that when abortion on demand began, many, and, indeed, I’m sure many of you, warned that the practice would lead to a decline in respect for human life, that the philosophical premises used to justify abortion on demand would ultimately be used to justify other attacks on the sacredness of human life — infanticide or mercy killing.

“Tragically enough,” he said, “those warnings proved all too true.”

Thirty-four years after Reagan spoke these words, the Senate Judiciary Committee convened hearings on the confirmation of Sen. Jeff Sessions as attorney general.

They began with Chairman Charles Grassley citing a letter from former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice endorsing Sessions — and with Sessions happily introducing his wife of 47 years and mentioning his 10 grandchildren.

“As you know, the Constitution also protects a woman’s right to have access to health care and determine whether to terminate her pregnancy,” Feinstein told Sessions.

She meant: We’ve managed to get a majority of nine justices to declare a “right” to kill unborn babies.

“You have referred to Roe v. Wade as, quote, ‘one of the worst colossally erroneous Supreme Court decisions of all time,’ end quote,” Feinstein said. “Is that still your view?”

“It is,” Sessions said. “I believe it violated the Constitution, and really attempted to set policy and not follow law.”

Sessions then conceded he would not attempt to unilaterally overrule the Supreme Court from his position as attorney general.

“It is the law of the land,” he said of Roe.

Feinstein moved next to same-sex marriage — noting that President-elect Donald Trump had said this issue “was settled in the Supreme Court.”

“Do you agree that the issue of same-sex marriage is settled law?’ Feinstein asked.

“The Supreme Court has ruled on that,” Sessions said. “The dissents dissented vigorously, but it was five to four. And five justices on the Supreme Court, a majority of the court, has established the definition of marriage for the entire United States of America.”

Sessions again conceded he would not over-rule the court as attorney general. “I will follow that decision,” he said.

Sessions’ views on abortion and same-sex marriage are right. Feinstein’s are wrong.

But as the struggle between right and wrong has intensified in America, the ultimate battlefield has not been in Congress or the Justice Department. It has been in the Supreme Court.

The confirmation fight over Session has been intense, but it is merely a prelude to the domestic Cold War confrontation we will see over Supreme Court nominations.

If Trump names pro-life constitutionalists — as he has promised — the battle cry then must be taken from Ronald Reagan: We win, they lose.